LTI is the most pervasive technology standard in education, enabling secure plug-and-play integration of learning systems in the right place, at the right time, for the right student. LTI Advantage extends the core capabilities of LTI by adding three essential end-user services to support seamless integration and data support. Faculty and students will save time and achieve better insights through the market adoption of LTI Advantage by edtech suppliers. LTI Advantage will provide a trusted, secure, and low-cost foundation across a wide array of learning platforms both now and as the evolution continues toward next-generation digital learning.

LTI 1.3 and LTI Advantage are the first standards to leverage the newly released IMS Security Framework, which ensures the highest level of protection for sensitive and personally identifiable information being passed between applications, reducing both institutional and personal risk.

"Adoption of LTI Advantage by leading platform and learning tool suppliers is helping institutions accelerate the movement toward establishing a fully integrated and innovative digital ecosystem," said Dr. Rob Abel, chief executive officer, IMS Global Learning Consortium. "We're very grateful for the continued commitment and cooperation by IMS Contributing Members who are working together to make next-generation digital learning a reality, faster."

Bolstered by requirements from institutional leaders for LTI Advantage to improve usability, user experience, and data security, along with support from the leading LMS partners, the next wave of early adopters achieving IMS certification for LTI Advantage include AEFIS, Cengage, Kaltura, McGraw-Hill, and VitalSource.

IMS offers an Alliance membership for educational technology providers that want to implement certified-LTI Advantage now. To facilitate adoption, IMS has developed an innovative test reference implementation for learning tool providers to build out and test their deployment.

"LTI has long been the gold standard in interoperability for edtech," said Mustafa Sualp, founder and CEO, AEFIS. "LTI Advantage expands this important standard to new heights allowing our academic partners to lower costs and reduce risk by getting a larger return in investments in technologies on their campuses. As a proud contributing member of IMS Global, we are excited about the leadership role we have been able to play in the development and early adoption of this modern new standard, and proud to be the first Assessment Management Platform to be certified in LTI Advantage."

"Kaltura is proud to be an early adopter of LTI Advantage and other IMS standards, said Jeff Rubenstein, vice president of product strategy, Kaltura, Inc. "LTI Advantage is a quantum leap from earlier versions of the standard, representing a deeper level of integration with other technologies, as well as improved security. As openness is one of Kaltura's key corporate values, we are thrilled to help define and promote IMS open standards."

"McGraw-Hill is thrilled to be among the early adopters to attain LTI Advantage certification, said Stephen Laster, chief digital officer, McGraw-Hill Education. "At McGraw-Hill, we believe in the power of open standards to achieve seamless, interoperable solutions for administrators, instructors, and students. With the LTI Advantage suite of services, we have the means to efficiently deliver empathetic and complete integration solutions that put learning and ease of access at the center of the digital experience."

"VitalSource has long leveraged LTI to provide students with seamless access to course materials, said Andrew Alfers, vice president of product management, VitalSource. "LTI enables us to deliver content quickly and easily to millions of students and faculty across thousands of institutions via learning management systems and other platforms. We are immensely proud that VitalSource is one of the first learning tools and the first content delivery system to be LTI Advantage-certified."

"We're excited to be working with our partner and developer communities to help drive adoption of LTI Advantage, said Jim Chalex, vice president of product management for teaching & learning, Blackboard. "Starting first with an early adopter cohort, we've now transitioned to regularly occurring office hours as well as providing documentation, assistance, and software access in our free, online developer community. Finally, this month kicks off our global schedule of DevCon developer conferences where we'll be showcasing LTI Advantage and open standards on four continents."

"We are committed to adopting and furthering open standards, like LTI Advantage, because they make technical innovation in education possible, said Melissa Loble, senior vice president of customer success, Instructure and IMS board member. "Standards help make Canvas a better platform, and we encourage our users and partners to implement open standards to improve teaching and learning while powering educational advancement."

"We at Moodle are excited about the impact LTI Advantage can bring to better enable tools within the learning ecosystem, said Garnet Berry, partnerships manager, Moodle. "With the three services that have been added as part of LTI Advantage our Certified Partners along with the tools that integrate with Moodle will be able to connect in an even more secure and integrated solution that will benefit both educators and students."

"When LTI 1.1 launched, it was almost six months before the second major LMS announced public support of the specification, said Dr. Charles Severance, PMC chair, Sakai Project. "LTI Advantage is a far broader and more complex specification, and yet several leading LMS vendors and tool providers have already achieved certification. That speaks volumes to the level of energy and commitment invested in the development of LTI Advantage. Once LMS and tool builders start to understand and use the features in LTI Advantage, we will quickly wonder how we ever did LMS integrations without it."

About IMS Global Learning Consortium
IMS Global is a non-profit organization that advances technology to scale and improve educational participation and attainment affordably. IMS Global members are leading suppliers, institutions, and government organizations that are enabling the future of education by collaborating on interoperability and adoption initiatives. IMS Global sponsors the Learning Impact Leadership Institute; a global program focused on recognizing the impact of innovative technology on educational access, affordability, and quality while developing the people and ideas to help shape the future of educational technology.